FIFA official stood down amid probe
Member of body’s financial monitoring panel has been suspended after he was implicated in financial corruption.
A member of FIFA’s financial monitoring panel has been stood down from duty while implicated in financial corruption.
Canover Watson was questioned last month by police anti-corruption and financial crime units in his native Cayman Islands. He denies wrongdoing.
FIFA said on Tuesday that audit committee chairman Domenico Scala “decided to temporarily relieve until further notice Canover Watson, to whom the presumption of innocence applies”.
The eight-member panel is next scheduled to meet on December 16 in Morocco, on the sidelines of the Club World Cup.
It was formed in 2012, and scrutinises FIFA’s $1 billion-plus annual revenue and commercial contracts. Scala’s team has intervened to block some of FIFA’s 209 member federations applying for development grants.
Watson is a director of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange and treasurer of the islands’ football federation. He is a close associate of federation
FIFA said the police investigation was not linked to Watson’s work in football.